All those writers above and they still end up with one of the lamest episodes of the show. The ship is visited by an alien entity, first represented as a point of light (see The Child and probably some other episodes). One of the children aboard, a girl, has an imaginary friend she calls "Isabella," which worries her father, who serves aboard as an ensign, but Troi plays along with it, telling him not to worry. It's emblematic of the episode that when the imaginary playmate actually materializes in front of the girl, she doesn't even blink - like it happens every day.

Ugh, talk about tedious! During much of the episode, the girl walks around the ship speaking to her so-called imaginary friend and everyone continues to believe that it's just a figment of her imagination, not realizing that there's an actual invisible presence. This presence is scoping out the ship, in preparation for when the "others" arrive and kill everyone Troi and Guinan are especially clueless in this episode, since they supposedly should sense something is off. And, we get to hear Guinan talk about her imaginary childhood friend twice! The ship is exploring some nebula, which contains these alien entities. After a build-up to possible carnage, the ending is as lame as the bulk of the episode. BoG's Score: 3 out of 10